


Earthy and Holy

by jedishampoo



Category: Saiyuki
Genre: AU, Alternate Universe - Space, M/M, dying priests in space, priests in space, reviving dead people
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-09-05
Updated: 2013-09-05
Packaged: 2017-12-25 16:14:23
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 6,106
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/955169
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/jedishampoo/pseuds/jedishampoo
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Priests Sanzo and Hazel of the Faith Federation, a space-going civilization, are sent on a mission.  Sanzo/Hazel, space AU.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Earthy and Holy

  
**Warnings:** AU; death. Silliness, seriousness.  
 **Author’s Notes:** For tsuzuki1 in the 7thnight_smut AU fic exchange. Prompt was _Sanzo/Hazel, get sucked into space by aliens._ I promise it’s not all as silly as the beginning. It gets rather serious, in fact. Thanks to my lovely betas, athena8 and sharpeslass.Any remaining errors are my own. Please pardon me as I archive my older fics to AO3.  
  
  
  
 **Earthy and Holy**  
  
“Priest Saaaaaaanzo!”  
  
High Priest Genjyo Sanzo dropped his data-pad on the old-fashioned wooden desk with a plunk, closed his eyes and pinched the bridge of his nose between thumb and forefinger. The newest Christian in their church-cell had developed a massive crush on him, Sanzo. In all Sanzo’s years of existence he’d dealt with that sort of thing before, several times.  
  
That didn’t make it any less annoying. But the kid had been assigned to be part of his team, so Sanzo figured he’d just have to deal with it. Maybe the kid’s boundless hero-worship would just... go away _._ Eventually.  
  
“Priest Saaaaaanzo!”  
  
Sanzo hoped it would go away _soon_. “Shut up! I’m trying to do paperwork in here.”  
  
Sanzo’s eyes were closed and so he could hear, but not see, Priest Hazel Grouse as he tripped into the room with youthful energy.  
  
“There you are, Master Sanzo! I apologize for shoutin’. I was just checking in on you. That’s my job, now, isn’t it?”  
  
Sanzo risked opening one eye, and yep, there was the boundless admiration, shining from bright blue eyes. The eyes were wide, and set in a pretty face crowned by blonde hair that was so light as to be almost white.  
  
Well, Sanzo thought, at least the kid was better-looking than the last Christian representative. But the last Christian representative had been all of eighty if he’d been a day. He’d _never_ hit on Sanzo.  
  
It made sense that the higher-ups had paired him with Hazel, given that their powers were so similar. Hazel had inherited the Lazarus power: the secret of revival of the dead. Whether or not the immortal soul remained in the body afterwards had been a question that priests of all faiths had debated for hundreds of years. The Christians held that it was so: the people who’d been revived never claimed to be anyone other than who’d they’d been before they died.  
  
If Sanzo had a bit of knowledge that might resolve the issue one way or another, he kept it to himself. As he’d been sworn to keep all his secrets.  
  
Sanzo looked back down at his pad. “I already have other assistants, if you didn’t remember. You’re more of a... junior partner. Go study or something.”  
  
“Those two? Master, you must be joking. They’re useless,” Hazel said, damning Hakkai and Gojyo with a wave of his fingers. “Though I’ll admit-- that Mr. Hakkai has a way with database research. And he’s not a bad cook. Quite handy when we’re out on assignment.”  
  
“Hnh,” Sanzo said, and picked up the pad with a flip of his hand that screamed, he hoped, of deliberate finality. He didn’t really want to re-read what the Sanbutsushin had sent, but figured he’d better be sure of all of the facts before acting on the orders. Damn it.  
  
Hazel was still talking. “That Gojyo. I don’t know why you keep him around. I repeat: he’s useless.”  
  
Sanzo was getting more annoyed by the minute: a crap mission, an interruption, and to top it all off, derision of his assistants. Only _he_ was allowed to deride his odd little... family.  
  
“Well, he does have a certain... skill with his hands,” Sanzo said, just to annoy Hazel. He also lit a cigarette, just to annoy Hazel.  
  
It worked: Hazel simultaneously waved a hand in front of his face and shivered at the thought of Gojyo employing his skills on Sanzo. No matter that _that_ had ended long ago, and well Hazel knew it.  
  
“He’s not worthy,” Hazel muttered.  
  
He looked as if he might say more. Already regretting his deliberate nastiness because it would only make life more annoying, Sanzo waved the datapad at Hazel to forestall him.  
  
“He keeps Goku busy,” Sanzo said. “And speaking of missions-- it's just as well you’re here, I suppose. We’ll have to leave Tenkai Station. The Ukan have attacked an outpost of believers on Sirius 2. The three powers that be are ordering me to check it out. I was downloading the data to give to Hakkai.”  
  
“What?” Hazel asked, and his countenance shifted from disgusted adoration to all seriousness. “Believers? Which faith?”  
  
“Mixed.”  
  
“How long?”  
  
“A day or so ago.” Sanzo set the pad back onto the table. “Your power should still come in handy.”  
  
“Yes.” Hazel’s blue eyes gleamed with fervor. “Let us go rescue those poor souls.”  
  
“Hnh,” Sanzo said.  
  
“May I bring Gat?” Gat was Tenkai Station’s unofficial representative from the galactic followers of the Great Spirit. He had joined them on the station and become Hazel’s faithful servant after Hazel had rescued him on an earlier mission. Revived him, to be precise.  
  
“Yes,” Sanzo said, truthfully. This latest attack was apparently a hit-‘em-and-split sort of thing, but there might still be enemies left behind to fight. “Gat is good at killing.”  
  
Hazel turned on a bootheel, black-and-white Christian-style robes swinging. “I’ll go pack your things while you finish the necessary paperwork, then.”  
  
 _Gojyo can do that_ , Sanzo started to say, because the thought of Hazel lovingly caressing all of Sanzo’s belongings before packing them, as Sanzo suspected he might do, was off-putting. But then he realized that having Hazel off doing something useful would buy him a few minutes of alone-time before being crammed into a small ship with several other people.  
  
“You do that,” he said, and took a nice, long drag from his cigarette.  
  
***  
  
Hazel smoothed his fingers one last time over the silky fabric of the extra robe he’d packed for Sanzo, then shut the lid of the case. He depressed the condenser button until the case had shrunk to an acceptably portable size.  
  
It would only take a minute or two to grab his own things, and Gat needed very little, so this was one small service he could perform for High Priest Sanzo.  
  
He did wonder, however, why Sanzo hadn’t seemed to feel more urgently about this mission. People needed his, Hazel’s, help, and the Ukan needed to be taught a lesson. They were nasty things, all teeth and scales and slime. Their recent attacks seemed to signify another push into Federated Faith territory.  
  
This galaxy, what Hazel thought of as _his_ galaxy, was protected by awesome powers-- the powers of its priests. The interfaith ruling council had thus kept the civil peace for a century or more. The high priests made the decisions and the regular priests, like Hazel, saw that the decisions were carried through.  
  
Sanzo, as a Buddhist, was allowed to follow the orders of the Sanbutsushin. Hazel, as his attaché of sorts, followed Sanzo. In the matter of the Ukan, however, the Sanbutsushin and the interfaith council seemed united. Surely the Federation would defeat the Ukan, soon, and go back to the business of rebuilding from the last great war.  
  
Hazel ran his fingers over the sleek metal of the case, and breathed, deep breaths, inhaling the scent of Sanzo that hovered all about this room. It was slightly tinged with smoke. Hazel adored it.  
  
He knew that what he felt wasn’t respectful. Wasn’t possible. He--  
  
The door to Sanzo’s chambers whooshed open and a small form came bounding through like a wild animal.  
  
“Hakkai says we’re leavin’-- Oh, it’s just you.” The arrival was Goku, Priest Sanzo’s ward. Hazel narrowed his eyes with the usual, proper caution. The story was that Sanzo had picked up the strange little being on a near-lifeless rock somewhere in the borderlands. Hazel suspected that the runt had more power than he seemed to, under his childish exterior.  
  
“Yes, we’re leaving on a very important mission,” Hazel said, very much on his high horse. “Very soon. You should get ready. Pack.”  
  
“What’s that, then?” Goku pointed at the condense-a-case. “Oh, right. You only wanna touch Sanzo’s things.”  
  
“That’s not--” Hazel began, then stopped. _Well, it was true_. “Why you--”  
  
The door whooshed open again. It was yet another person whom Hazel didn’t feel like dealing with at the moment. The tall, red-headed, long-limbed and _much_ too useless and good-looking Gojyo stood there and smirked at them with his usual idiotic smugness.  
  
“Yo, Goku. Yo, Hazel. You pawin’ through Sanzo’s things again?”  
  
“Yeah,” Goku said, digging under the floor hatch for another condense-a-case.  
  
“No,” said Hazel, and crossed his arms at his chest. “But I did pack _High Priest_ Sanzo’s traveling items already. So you can just go... do whatever else it is that you do.”  
  
“Is Gat coming?” Goku wanted to know.  
  
“Yes.”  
  
“That’s cool, then,” Goku said, threw a few things into a case, and snapped it shut with items _still hanging out of it_. “C’mon, Gojyo, let’s go get Hakuryu 3 ready!”  
  
He was referring to Sanzo’s private ship. With an ironic-looking bow at Hazel, Gojyo followed Goku out the door.  
  
Hazel thought that, surely, one of the great mysteries of existence was how a great priest like Sanzo, the highest priest in the Federation, could let types like that be so overly familiar with him and the other priests. Deep down, though, he realized that he did the exact same thing with Sanzo-- treated him more equally than he should. It was part of Sanzo’s charisma, that he just seemed to hate everyone and yet accept everyone at the same time. Outwardly he was irascible and standoffish. Still, he seemed to collect people who adored him without even trying to do so. And he cared for them all, in his way-- Hazel _knew_ it.  
  
Add that sort of charisma to his astounding appearance-- slender frame, hair the color of wheat growing in Earth’s few remaining free-farms, fine features and those violet eyes-- it was no wonder that Hazel had fallen madly in love with Sanzo the first time he’d seen him.  
  
Sanzo was rumored to have other powers besides his inherited ability to shed light and cleanse the dark. There wasn’t much Hazel wouldn’t give or do to find out for sure. He wanted to know everything about Sanzo; to know him in a way that nobody else had. It wasn’t just lust, or hero-worship, as others seemed to assume. Hazel was _consumed._  
  
Hazel’s reverie was interrupted yet again, this time by a voice over the comm..  
  
“Priest Hazel? This is Cho Hakkai. We’ll be ready to leave in about ten minutes. Will you and Pr...er, Mr. Gat meet us in the bay?”  
  
“I will, Mr. Cho,” Hazel said to the ceiling. It was just like Priest Sanzo to take his own time about important business, and then expect everyone else to hurry when he decided he wanted them to.  
  
Hazel picked up the condense-a-case that Gojyo had pointedly left behind and exited, securing the chambers behind him.  
  
***  
  
When Sanzo reached the ship, everyone seemed ready to go. He was slightly disappointed at that, because it meant he had no reason to bitch at anybody, and he felt like bitching. He didn’t want to leave the station. Something about the mission just didn’t feel right to him.  
  
It wasn’t that he was fearful, per se: Sanzo rarely felt fear. It just wasn’t... well, there was something strange going on.  
  
Their youkai pilot, Yakumo, was already seated in the cockpit and pushing all the necessary buttons. The youkai and humans had once been mutual enemies on Earth. That had changed, years ago, with the discovery of space travel and alien life. Sanzo often thought it strange that something that had been there all along, flying about the galaxy while Earthlings bickered on their own planet, had been such a catalyst for change.  
  
 _Good thing, because Yakumo was an excellent pilot._  
  
Gojyo was sitting in the copilot’s chair. Hazel hovered behind Sanzo at the cockpit entrance, because where Sanzo went, Hazel went, too.  
  
“What the hell is he doing?”  
  
Sanzo had finally found something to bitch about. Through the cockpit window he could see Hakkai, still outside the ship, locked in what was apparently a goodbye embrace with his girlfriend. _Yvonne. Yoine_. Something like that.  
  
“The usual,” Gojyo said.  
  
“Tell him to get his ass on board.”  
  
Hazel pushed a bit around Sanzo to see what was going on outside, nudging Sanzo into the backs of the pilots’ chairs.  
  
“Kinda crowded in here, Sanzo,” Gojyo said with a leer. “Unless you wanna sit on my lap. I’ll let you help me fly.”  
  
Hazel answered before Sanzo had a chance. “You shouldn’t speak so disrespectfully to _High Priest_ Sanzo.”  
  
“Let’s just get out of here,” Sanzo said with a sigh, and circled a finger in the air at Hazel, motioning him to turn around and _get the hell out of his way._  
  
Gat and Goku were already seated in the passenger area and strapped in, the enormous Gat taking up two seats. A _bong_ over the intercom signaled that Hakkai had come on board and the hatchway was shut. Sanzo looked at the assembled company and sighed again, longer and louder and infinitely more wearily.  
  
“I’ll use the seat in my private office,” he said, and stomped off. The office only seated one. Hazel would have no choice but to stay with everyone else. And so Sanzo would be alone for a few minutes longer.  
  
He left the office lights off, strapped into his desk chair and turned on his monitor. One thing that had been bugging him about the mission was the fact that the Sanbutsushin had sent him to deal with so minor a disaster as this outpost attack. Sure, perhaps Hazel might come in handy-- he could revive the dead interfaith priests and monks and whatever other denizens had populated the outpost. But Sanzo? In deference to their old pact, the Sanbutsushin usually gave Sanzo explanations when he asked for them. In this case, however, the orders had not allowed for questions. They’d been signed, “It must be done.”  
  
The floor thrummed as Hakuryu 3 lifted off and soared out of the atmosphere, and Sanzo read and re-read the orders. _Ukan_. They were such a pain in his ass. He groped in the dark for the button to the drawer where he kept a flask for just such annoying moments. He found it and took a swig, then regretted it because it made him want a cigarette. Even the High Priest Sanzo couldn’t smoke on board a small ship that was flying through space. The air recyclers and alarms would go nuts.  
  
The _boop_ of the “we’re safe in space” signal echoed throughout the ship. Sanzo knew that the other chime wouldn’t be long in coming.  
  
 _Bong._  
  
Sanzo felt a moment or two of déjà vu when he said “What?” and he heard the young voice call back to him.  
  
“Priest Sanzo?”  
  
 _Hazel. Right on time_. “Come in,” Sanzo said.  
  
The door slid open and Hazel came in as ordered, stepping into the faint light from the panels and monitor. He had a worried look in his blue eyes, and that look scanned Sanzo. Hazel had proved to be more sensitive to Sanzo’s moods than Sanzo might have liked. He knew things. He hadn’t gotten to be the inheritor of Lazarus through pure ingenuousness.  
  
He was also more attractive than Sanzo would have liked: fit, and appealing. Hazel had several... disguises. Sanzo had once briefly considered peeling them away to discover the man underneath, then realized that to do so would be quite unfair. And too much trouble, in the end. Sanzo had already gotten too attached to this life.  
  
“What is it?”  
  
“I thought, Priest Sanzo, that we might discuss the mission parameters. How many, why, and such.”  
  
Sanzo turned the monitor so that Hazel could read it. “There’s nothing to discuss. We go, you do your thing, I do mine, we leave.”  
  
Hazel scanned the screen. He still looked troubled.  
  
“So few, for an interfaith post. I mean, I want to help. And I want to save them. But I was startin’ to wonder why they didn’t just bring them all back to the station for that, and leave the outpost as a casualty of war?”  
  
Sanzo was impressed despite himself at Hazel’s perspicacity. The kid fooled most people with his “I’m so pretty and earnest” routine, but he was really very shrewd when he wanted to be. _Disguises._  
  
“I agree,” he admitted. “But what I’d also like to know is--”  
  
A sudden sound so loud it drowned out most thought, light so bright that all form was meaningless, along with an intense cold, cut him off. Sanzo barely had time to think the words.  
  
***  
  
Hazel didn’t know whether to be terrified or amazed. They were _floating in space._ He, and Priest Sanzo, had been blown into space by an attack on their ship.  
  
By all rights, in all normal circumstances, they should have been dead. Frozen instantly, unable to breathe, exploded from lack of pressure, or all three at once. However, Sanzo was no ordinary man in any way, shape or form.  
  
Watching Sanzo use his power was always a stunning thing. This time, it was particularly stunningly welcome. Maten power surrounded them like tendrils of light, forming a near-sphere that kept them whole, breathing and best of all, alive.  
  
Hazel hung there, watching the light of the Maten power and the light of something outside their little bubble of safety-- it appeared that a sort of space battle was going on around them. There was Hakuryu 3, and there-- a horribly ugly ship. _The Ukan._  
  
Hazel was afraid to speak, so he just watched the lights and Sanzo and the battle. The bubble jerked, and Hazel nearly cried out. Then it began to shift, slow undulations through the dead cold of space.  
  
“Someone’s got us. Capture beam,” Sanzo said, as calmly as if they’d still been talking in his office. Hazel felt a surge of hope and his eyes followed Sanzo’s gaze, directed on a point outside the bubble. They both watched as Hakuryu 3 limped off, flashing the _we’ll be back_ signal, a great sparking hole marring the port side of her sleek hull. They were probably going to repair, or to call for help, in the hopes of rescuing Sanzo and Hazel, eventually. Sanzo _tched._ “Shit.”  
  
It wasn’t as if even Priest Sanzo could fight off an enemy capture-beam while simultaneously floating in the dead cold of space and activating the Maten power. So they were dragged to the underside of the asymmetrical Ukan ship, into a hatchway. Hazel imagined that the ship itself looked slimy.  
  
When they were inside the ship and the whoosh of the atmosphere was plainly audible, Sanzo deactivated his power. With the tendrils of light gone the hold, or whatever, was pitch dark. It was cold, but not so cold that humans couldn’t bear it. Hazel took a chance and opened his mouth to breathe the alien air. It was as dank as he might have expected.  
  
They didn’t have long alone in the dark; a hatchway opened above them and an Ukan head, backlit by soft green, peeked down at them. Hazel heard Sanzo mumble something and the Maten power activated again, directed with perfect accuracy into the hole in the ceiling. After a while there was no more sound from above, and no more heads peeked down at them.  
  
“We need to take over this ship,” Sanzo said, and stood, staring up into the hole. “I wish your Gat was here. Can’t be helped, though. Boost me up, and I’ll pull you through.”  
  
“I’ll make myself useful,” Hazel promised.  
  
A few moments later they were hugging the oily walls, skulking slowly through the passageways of the ship. Now and then an Ukan warrior appeared and pointed something deadly-looking at them, but Sanzo made short work of them with the Maten.  
  
“Stay close,” Sanzo warned once, when Hazel halted to collect energy from one of their dead, scaly foes.  
  
“I’m right behind you, no matter what,” Hazel informed him, and meant every word. He waved his hand, still glowing with residual energy, at Sanzo. “And I’ll do whatever I have to do. To protect you.”  
  
Sanzo stopped skulking and pressed his face close to Hazel’s, closer than Hazel had ever seen him, in fact, staring into his eyes with a wild expression. It should have been exciting. Instead, it was rather frightening.  
  
“Don’t you dare use your... thing on me. There will always be a Sanzo.”  
  
 _Not like you_ , Hazel thought, but didn’t say aloud.  
  
“Yes, sir,” Hazel whispered.  
  
Ahead of them another hatchway opened in the ceiling of the passage: it appeared that the Ukan did not use lifts or ladders. Some clawed feed dropped out of this one. Foolish, because Sanzo just blew them away, one by one, until no more dared venture down. Sanzo moved to stand underneath and shot a few streams of energy into the hole for good measure.  
  
How Hazel loved to watch him work: the golden light seemed to fill Sanzo, emanate from him, making him appear glorious and godlike. Hazel wondered what it might feel like to have that golden light directed at him. It could be used to kill, and shield, yes, but it could also be used to cleanse, that holy light.  
  
“Focus!” Sanzo barked at him with a scowl. Hazel fancied that Sanzo was reading his mind. Or maybe it was just his enraptured gaze that Sanzo was reading.  
  
“Yes.”  
  
“We have to go up to get to the bridge,” Sanzo continued, and mumbled something under his breath that sounded like _damned three heads, damned junior partners._  
  
“Another lift?” Hazel smiled, feeling suddenly, wonderfully happy despite their predicament. He held out joined fingers for Sanzo to step into.  
  
“Hnn,” Sanzo said, and Hazel braced his fingers against the weight of Sanzo’s boot as he jumped up into the hole.  
  
There was a noise and a flash of light-- A _fzzzt_ of sickly green, nothing like the glorious gold of the Maten-- and then a thump. It took Hazel a moment or two to realize that the thump had been Sanzo, falling to the cold metal passageway at his feet.  
  
“No!” he cried, and fell to his knees.  
  
Another _fzzzt_ and green flash shot down like lightning from the hatch and hit Sanzo in the chest. Sanzo didn’t move. Hazel grabbed one of the boots he’d just held moments ago-- _was it the same foot?_ he wondered with wild panic-- and dragged Sanzo’s limp form _not body_ into one of the alcoves littering the hallway. He had the presence of mind to grab Sanzo’s energy gun from his robe-- Hazel had seen him tuck it in there-- and fired at the hole. The energy beam did not immediately return.  
  
And yet Hazel was faced with something far worse, something he cringed with every cell of his body to imagine. Sanzo’s eyes were closed: he looked as if he might be sleeping.  
  
But Hazel had been doing what he did for too long to not know when someone was dead. And High Priest Sanzo was dead.  
  
“No,” Hazel whimpered again, as if saying it so plaintively might make it not be true.  
  
He grabbed at Sanzo’s cold hand and clasped it, squeezing hard as if it might stop the wrenching ache that tore through his stomach, his heart, his toes. Hazel was a shell, empty and dead were it not for the pain. He wanted to die, too. And so would end their mission.  
  
Unless...  
  
Hazel couldn’t live without him. There really was no decision to make, no consequences-- worse than what he felt now-- to consider. He lay a hand on Sanzo’s chest and let energy pulse through him.  
  
****  
  
Sanzo opened his eyes. He wondered why he was looking up. He wondered why he was looking up at Hazel’s terrified face. Surely he, Sanzo, had died, a few moments ago. It had happened before, over and over: he knew the feeling well. He remembered each and every time he’d died.  
  
“What the hell did you do?” he croaked.  
  
Hazel was hugging himself, tears leaking from his screwed-shut eyes. “Thank God. Thank God. Thank God,” he whispered. “It’s you.”  
  
“That remains to be seen.” Sanzo test-moved his fingers, then his legs. He thought the words, then mumbled them. Nothing happened, not that he’d thought it might. It was as he’d feared: stupid, young, _stupid_ Hazel had made a terrible mistake.  
  
“Thank God,” Hazel repeated.  
  
“You... you... shouldn’t have done that. I told you-- argh.” Sanzo tried to make the body work. More feeling was finding its way to his extremities, enough that he could sit up. Hazel was weeping in silence. Sanzo should-- _it could wait_. “I can’t hold on to this body, you know.”  
  
“What?” Hazel said. His gaze flicked to something behind sort-of Sanzo.  
  
Sanzo reached into his robes. He found cigarettes, a lighter... “Where’s the gun?”  
  
“Here,” Hazel said, and started to hand it over. He wasn’t quick enough. Neither was Sanzo, because he was where he never should have been. Long, green clawed arms grabbed the gun and then the two priests’ limbs.  
  
“We know you are priests,” one of the four Ukan told them in hesitant Federation language. “Maybe you have information? You will come with us. The gods will decide what we do with you.”  
  
Hazel struggled against their captors, but Sanzo didn’t even bother. He’d grown too used to the power of the Maten, and without it or his gun, he was useless.  
  
“Shit,” he said.  
  
They were carried down the passage and around a few corners, and were ultimately tossed into a small cell with two small foil-packs of water and no ceremony at all. The door locked behind them. It was pitch-black inside, and Sanzo could do nothing about it.  
  
The decking beneath them hummed as the Ukan ship kicked back into space-travel gear. Sanzo listened to that, and Hazel’s breathing, for a while. Hazel’s breaths were uneven, unsure, hitched now and then. Sanzo wasn’t sure whether to pity him or kill him.  
  
“We’re going to die anyway, you know,” he said in the general direction of the breathing. “Have you made arrangements for the transfer of your power?”  
  
“But you can--” Hazel said, and then audibly gulped. “Master. If you are punishing me for my transgression, I understand. But please, at least use your power to save yourself. Or all this will be worth nothin’.”  
  
Sanzo definitely felt pity, at that moment; the body he wore also seemed able to manifest it physically. His breastbone ached, a little.  
  
“It’s not that,” he said, and sighed. _Strange_ \-- that little ache seemed to loosen his tongue, as well. No one but he should ever know this-- that was part of the deal. _Screw the Sanbutsushin. They’d known this was going to happen, and so they could deal with the fucking consequences._ Not that Hazel would live long enough to force any consequences. Sanzo’s chest hurt again; maybe it was just the aftereffects of dying and then being tossed around by very large aliens. “I have no power. This is no longer my body.”  
  
“That’s not possible,” Hazel said, loud in the little enclosed space. “I’ve revived priests before. I have seen--”  
  
“No. Not what you think. The Sanbutsushin will give me another body. They always have. I’ll be reincarnated.” Sanzo took a deep breath. “It’s always been the same Sanzo. Me, that is. I’ve lived a very, very long time.”  
  
“Oh.” Hazel’s voice now sounded very small.  
  
“Yeah,” Sanzo said. He didn’t bother to say, _don’t tell anyone_. Hazel understood the situation all too well.  
  
There were a few quiet moments, and then Sanzo heard a rustling noise, and then felt warm fingers on his shoulders. The fingers moved slowly up his neck, to his cheeks. He stayed very still.  
  
“Thank you for telling me,” Hazel breathed, warm on Sanzo’s forehead.  
  
Sanzo didn’t reply. The warm breath puffed against his nose, his lips. It was replaced by warm lips, soft and hesitant as they pressed against his.  
  
This body definitely still manifested things physically; Sanzo felt heat creep into his limbs, where there’d only been cold and _wrong_ before. He let it happen, let Hazel have his moment.  
  
“At least I know that you’ll be safe,” Hazel whispered into Sanzo’s mouth. And suddenly, Sanzo realized that he’d had it wrong, all wrong, he was the one who’d been stupid. Hazel only cared about him. It had never been a youthful crush at all, on Hazel’s part. Youthful crushes were selfish, and this was so very far from that.  
  
Sanzo had always had been blind, in a way, for he never let himself get too attached, never in all of his lives, all of them remembered like his deaths. For the first time in a very long time, Sanzo wondered about the people he’d left behind, in all his lives. What they never told the “new” Sanzo who appeared, new or re-used personality intact, when the old one was gone-- before they drifted off, to be replaced by different people.  
  
Who would take care of Goku, for instance? Gojyo, or perhaps Hakkai? Sanzo never could again.  
  
Hazel would never have to know that sort of feigned ignorance from Sanzo; he’d most likely, barring a miracle, be dead. Sanzo lay his body’s fingers atop Hazel’s at his cheeks, and kissed Hazel back.  
  
***  
  
Hazel didn’t even have to think about being happy: he just was. Without sight he explored the angles of the face he’d admired for so long and memorized long ago, tasted the smoky scent he’d loved to breathe-- it was exactly the same, exactly right.  
  
His body tingled everywhere it had hurt so terribly before as he let his tongue delve deep into the taste that was all _Sanzo_. Whether it was pity or the promise of imminent death or the captivity that let Sanzo’s hands hold Hazel’s cheeks in return, let his tongue try to swallow Hazel’s whole, Hazel did not know nor care. Hazel was ravenous, no longer hesitant; he leaned back and dragged Sanzo down atop him. Every square centimeter of that dear body pressed against his, hot through their clothes.  
  
Sanzo might say he no longer had his power, no longer owned that body, but Hazel knew that could just not be so. Not completely. Invisible golden light guided his hands as he yanked at the ties to Sanzo’s robe, and let him explore the skin under his shirt, taut and smooth over his chest, his belly. It was too much happiness, his lust was too intense. He had to breathe.  
  
“Sanzo,” he whispered into soft hair.  
  
Long fingers brushed at Hazel’s forehead; others slid up and down his side, under his heavy robe.  
  
“What do you want, Hazel?” a voice whispered into his ear. Strange that that heated breath should make Hazel’s body shiver so.  
  
“Anything. I don’t care. All of it,” Hazel said.  
  
“Hnh.” The familiar sound was punctuated by a tongue that slid along Hazel’s neck, just under his earlobe. “Idiot.”  
  
Another dearly familiar expression. “And yet here you are,” Hazel whispered back. Not feeling daring, only doing what felt right, Hazel curled his palm down into Sanzo’s loose pants, felt the rounded curve of his buttock. He pressed down, shoving two erections together through their clothes.  
  
Sanzo grunted. “That’s so,” he said, and his voice was low, deep in Hazel’s ear.  
  
Hazel knew that Sanzo had had lovers before. Still, he gasped at the skill with which his lovely fingers slid between them into Hazel’s drawers, to wrap around his cock. It responded by twitching and throbbing hard in Sanzo’s grasp, so hard that Hazel thought he might explode with the pressure and pleasure of it.  
  
“Hnh,” Sanzo said again, and his smoky-tasting lips and tongue found Hazel’s mouth again. His fingers used their skill well, the sure grip on his cock sliding down and up, base to tip, strong friction that had Hazel grasping Sanzo’s shoulders in desperation. Sanzo did it again, and again.  
  
It was not long at all before Hazel climaxed, panting into Sanzo’s mouth for hours, it seemed.  
  
“Thank you,” Hazel whispered, when he could breathe again.  
  
He thought that he felt Sanzo smile against his lips. “Now that’s out of the way...”  
  
Sanzo’s body left his of a sudden. Hazel heard the rustling of fabric and deduced that Sanzo was removing his clothes. Thrilled beyond reckoning, Hazel scrambled to do the same. Never before would he have thought he would care so little that his lovely robes were tossed in a damp corner of a probably-filthy cell. Nothing else mattered. Hazel was going to die, but his greatest desire was fulfilled: to be close to Sanzo, to _know_ Sanzo. It was eminently more than most people got out of their brief lives.  
  
Naked, Hazel crawled a few knee-steps to the source of the rustling noise. He stretched out his fingers and found damp, warm skin, and clasped it to him. Sweaty fingers pressed into Hazel’s sweaty back, and warm, soft lips caressed his shoulder. It was more than he’d deserved in his life; Hazel knew he must repay some of this pleasure.  
  
How could Sanzo say this body wasn’t his, when it responded so to Hazel’s touch, cock pulsing under Hazel’s fingers as wildly as Hazel’s had under Sanzo’s? How could Hazel be so filled with happiness, if this body gave such a light to be sensed rather than seen, if this were not his Sanzo?  
  
Holy and earthy, all at once. That’s how Hazel felt when Sanzo pressed him down onto the floor, his slippery-sticky-coated fingers slipping into the cleft between Hazel’s buttocks to swipe at the sensitive skin there. Hazel was filled with both carnal sensation and divine light when he locked his ankles behind Sanzo’s back, and felt the hard, hot mass of Sanzo’s cock pressing against him, stretching him, and then into him.  
  
Sanzo grunted when he’d shoved his body in as far as he could go. He hovered over Hazel, hands braced on the floor, wrists brushing Hazel’s ears. “That feels... good,” Sanzo said, then, and Hazel fancied that Sanzo sounded surprised.  
  
“Yes,” Hazel said.  
  
Sanzo moved and Hazel moved with him. There was no visible light but Hazel could see Sanzo, anyway, fingers touching him everywhere he could. He wanted all of it. The pressure of Sanzo’s cock inside him paled in comparison to the clench at his spine and in his belly that only grew with every touch. He was hard again and Sanzo helped, clasping him as he moved inside him for short, eternal minutes. Sanzo had given him everything. Hazel came again, and Sanzo did as well, hunching over Hazel and breathing in sharp jerks.  
  
“Thank you,” Hazel said again as Sanzo lay his sweaty head into the curve of his shoulder. It was a more truthful statement than Hazel had ever offered to any god.  
  
“Hah,” Sanzo said, and it was a fond-sounding laugh. “You’re welcome.”  
  
Hazel didn’t speak for a while after that. He didn’t need to, yet. Sanzo had spoken the truth to him, in everything. The good and the bad. _Was there more? Am I ready for it?_ Hazel wondered.  
  
They had just gotten somewhat re-dressed when there was a clomping outside their cell. The door slid open with a rusty, uncleaned creak. Several hunched, dark forms blocked the dim light from the hallway.  
  
“P...Priest Genjyo Sanzo. Priest Hazel Grouse,” one of the forms said in growling Federationish. “The gods have identified you to us. You are too dangerous to be useful. The gods have told us that you must die.”  
  
“The gods, eh?” Sanzo said with some little irony.  
  
Hazel didn’t reply to their captors. He glanced at Sanzo in the dim green light that spilled into their cell from the hallway, memorizing his features once more now that he had the opportunity. But first, there was something else he wanted to ask. One last thing. “Will I be reincarnated, also?” he asked, not knowing if he truly wanted the answer or not.  
  
“I don’t know,” Sanzo said.  
  
“Ah. Well, I believed in everything I did,” Hazel said.  
  
“I know that,” Sanzo said.  
  
The Ukan lifted their weapons.  
  
  
 **END. Thank you for reading! Comments, concrit, all appreciated.**


End file.
